Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Double WORD.

I used to see Asians wearing masks at the airport and thought it over the top.

Well, I had read that mask wearing was a common practice in most of Asia at least in flu season, and I have read some studies that suggest it helps.  They seem able to do it as custom and without ill effect, nearly as I can tell.  Maybe they are too germophobic, I don't know.

I DO consider comfort a part of my right to the pursuit of happiness.  Before the vaccine was available, I allowed the government to infringe on that right, for the greater common good.  But now I am vaccinated, which renders the mask-wearing statistically useless, and I expect the suspension of my rights, to cease.

So yes, the mandate is the key in light of the presence of vaccines.  I'm not at all okay with being required to wear a mask, now that I am vaccinated, when the data indicates that the incremental protection of wearing a mask ABOVE the protection of the vaccine, is statistically insignificant.

But beyond that, I do believe that the simple discomfort of the mask IS a legitimate negative factor to be considered in weighing the tradeoffs.  Was my discomfort worth the benefit to society of my wearing it? In a pre-vaccine world, yes.  Now?  Nope.

On the one hand, I buy the argument that discomfort is something that should be considered more than it is. On another, I find that first sentence a bit overdramatic (and to a degree, some people's discussion of their own discomfort to also be overdramatic).

We live in a country where a person can be arrested for not wearing cloth over a certain part of their body in a variety of situations. No doubt some people see this as an impediment to their right to happiness, but we've decided the comfort of not seeing the human form matters more. We have all sorts of arbitrary things we make people do. 

Shoot, the term next to "pursuit of happiness" is "liberty" and we as a people are by and large ridiculously flippant about that (not to mention the founders, who likewise had flexible outlooks there). And really flippant about the parts codified in actual law, not just rhetoric. 

This isn't to say that your or my physical comfort shouldn't be considered, nor should questions of efficacy and weighing it all alongside the ability of the currently unvaccinatable (a group whose size I don't know) to participate in society. Shoot, I liked it a bit more in my last state where mask restrictions were a bit lighter. But this drama that builds around it is ... kinda a bit much (it's also a lot much on the other side, lord do I know that). 

Yep. It was one of the reasons I phrased things a certain way earlier...

In a benefit/cost analysis of the personal choice to wear a mask, it's true that there is basically (IMHO) no downside to a mask, if you're looking only at social / emotional / physical well-being...

...yet I don't wear one except when required. When I have the personal choice not to wear a mask, I do not wear one.

The reason for that is purely comfort. I don't like wearing it. It fogs my glasses. It's annoying.

I'm taking a larger risk with my own health by doing so. I have more potential to be an asymptomatic carrier and pass it to someone else by not wearing a mask. But I am making the choice for my own health and I'm comfortable with my choice, and someone who I'm around who isn't vaccinated is clearly comfortable with theirs.

i appreciate choice. but i'll disagree with this statement. you really aren't putting yourself at anymore risk by not wearing a mask. at least not an appreciable one, from my understanding. the whole point of wearing a mask, as alluded to in the next sentence, is to protect others from you. not you from others. and the reason masks aren't working nearly effective enough is because not near enough people understand this concept. or just don't buy into it. or don't care enough about their neighbors to be slightly inconvenienced.
it goes back to the ol' pissing example. if you walk around without pants pissing all over, others are gonna get wet whether they have pants on or not. but if you wear pants, it's extremely unlike anyone but you will get wet.
so you aren't taking a larger risk with your own health by not wearing a mask. you're taking a larger risk with the health of those people around you.
likewise with vaccines, though that is much more in line with your original statement of risking your own health. not sure why, but it used to be the anti-vax people were the crazy hippie loonies. not sure when or why that changed.

not necessarily directed at you, βραδ, you just happened to make that statement.

so you aren't taking a larger risk with your own health by not wearing a mask. you're taking a larger risk with the health of those people around you.

Well, I simply assume that the mask has some non-zero benefit to me personally. I don't have any quantification of that--maybe it's only 5% reduction in the likelihood that in a given scenario I'll contract COVID, or perhaps that it won't stop me from contracting COVID but it might reduce viral load such that I have a less severe case, etc.

But otherwise, I do agree. What I think we know so far is that masks reduce R0 of COVID, and we believe that the reduction is more related to catching someone's outgoing breath and reducing emissions of the virus than stopping the virus on the incoming breath. 

On the one hand, I buy the argument that discomfort is something that should be considered more than it is. On another, I find that first sentence a bit overdramatic (and to a degree, some people's discussion of their own discomfort to also be overdramatic).

We live in a country where a person can be arrested for not wearing cloth over a certain part of their body in a variety of situations. No doubt some people see this as an impediment to their right to happiness, but we've decided the comfort of not seeing the human form matters more. We have all sorts of arbitrary things we make people do.

Shoot, the term next to "pursuit of happiness" is "liberty" and we as a people are by and large ridiculously flippant about that (not to mention the founders, who likewise had flexible outlooks there). And really flippant about the parts codified in actual law, not just rhetoric.

This isn't to say that your or my physical comfort shouldn't be considered, nor should questions of efficacy and weighing it all alongside the ability of the currently unvaccinatable (a group whose size I don't know) to participate in society. Shoot, I liked it a bit more in my last state where mask restrictions were a bit lighter. But this drama that builds around it is ... kinda a bit much (it's also a lot much on the other side, lord do I know that).

There's no drama coming from me.  I do see lots of people freaking out here, and elsewhere, when I say what I feel about it all.  I view the drama as being entirely on their side. *shrug*